I'm afraid I can't offer any real advice on the home gym set-up, but just wanted to chime in with two thoughts:

1) I'm sorry you had a bad experience at your "new" gym (old gym, new owners) -- it is important to feel comfortable and safe in your environment and the fact that's no longer the case for you, well, quite frankly, that sucks. I have no advice (it doesn't sound like you need any), but I do offer my sympathy.

2) More importantly, I want to let you know that I admire your response to a bad situation. One option would have been to say "Well, this isn't working for me anymore; I guess I have to quit." Clearly, your response was that of a much stronger, more empowered women: "This isn't working for me. What can I do to make it work?" Building your own home gym? That's pretty awesome! Don't forget to share pictures when you're "open for business" so the rest of us can be duly jealous.

I'm not going to let a couple of jerks stop my progress.

Actually, in the end, this will work out better, as we spend over 600 dollars a year in gym fees anyway (DH and me on a membership) and my boys are getting to the right age to start lifting, so we figure, even if we get good equipment, in two years, we'll have recouped our investment.

Thanks for the encouragement. My initial response was crying and feeling really, really hurt by what happened. Then, I got mad and decided that they are not worth my time. The whole climate of the gym has changed so much since these new owners took over. It is not nearly as friendly to all shapes and sizes and I've noticed a lot of the larger clients are gone, quite suddenly.

Now, we just have to find space for the set up. For now, I'll be losing a portion of my study, but we'll probably build a room into the garage or I'll have to give up my car space for workouts. Totally worth it, because I refuse to give up, but I also refuse to endure abuse from people I don't even like.

I will miss my yoga class, but that's what DVDs are for and I'll do fine now that I know what I'm doing (mostly).

1. Bar and plates.
2. Bench.
3. Squat rack or power cage (power cage, while more expensive, giving the additional benefit of safety bars as well as things like a pull-up bar if that's your cup of tea).
4. Some form of floor protection (we bought rubberized garage floor shop pads that you can modularize to whatever size floor you need to cover -- a lot less expensive than replacing a broken Oly bar and/or floor).

That should pretty much do you. Of course expanding from there, the sky is the limit.

I'm pretty a) minimalistic and b) frugal, so I scored a great deal at a local Play It Again Sports for a Golds Gym Oly bar and plates plus a squat rack/bench; that plus the flooring set us back roughly $500 (including tax). My getup is now a bit rusty around the edges from being in the garage in a high humidity environment but works just fine. I don't have a power cage yet but not lifting heavy enough to really need one anyway.

The hubs is checking Craigslist. We're looking for an exercise bike as well, since that works well for warming up, for both of us.

Don't know what we'll end up with, but it will happen this weekend, because I'm only willing to give up one week of lifting.

Definitely check craigslist. We recently bought a home gym that I can do all of my 5x5 lifts on for $300. My husband also purchased some extra weights for $100. I will put a link to the picture.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200127538456322&l=0f640ecaee

Oh, NICE! We're looking on Craigslist and are lucky to have three large-ish cities within striking distance. Well, the whole state of Iowa is pretty much within a relatively easy drive.